Cathedral Memorials

When we consider all the damage suffered by cities, towns and villages during WW II, it is amazing how little of that damage was seen during our visits to Europe. There are a few places where the damage was left as a memorial, and then there is Dresden, Germany, where rubble was left in place, waiting until manpower and money was available to “do it right.”

In Coventry, England, we stopped to see the Cathedral in this city that was bombed so badly, early in the war. Parts of the wall are still standing, the tower is complete and open for us to climb the 168 steps. At the top we met a sightseeing college professor who knew my Brother, Johnny. That’s amazing.

A very modern new Cathedral was built right next to the old ruin in Coventry. This new Cathedral looks better than most new ones, even rather pleasing, but to my eye, it just doesn’t compare to the beautiful old Gothic Cathedrals. German people helped pay for this new Coventry Cathedral, and the English people helped pay for a hospital in Dresden. Emmy found the hour and a half here, very inspirational.

In Hamburg an elevator took us 433 feet high on the Fernsehturm, to the revolving restaurant in the TV tower. From there we could see the six famous steeples in Hamburg, which include the ruins of the gothic tower of St. Nikolai, at 482 feet, the third highest Cathedral tower in Germany. The Cathedral's tower, and little else, has been left standing as a memorial of the war.

In Berlin, where Kurfürstendamm Strasse nears the Tiergarten at Breitscheid Platz, there stands the remains of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Memorial-Church), built in the 1890s. The steeple was originally 370 feet high, but after the bombs fell, only 223 feet of the tower remained. The replacement church, built in the shape of an octagon, with a 172 feet campanile and 20,000 small dark-blue windows, is of an ultra modern design, and was consecrated on Dec. 17, 1961.

The last sermon preached in the old church on Nov. 23, 1943, had the theme “All passes away,” and it sure did. The remnant of its tower is kept as a remembrance of the havoc of war, and a museum is located in a small room next to the tower. Here, one special photo, with a message that really stuck in our minds, shows the desolate, bombed out city with a dejected, disconsolate man lying on a bench. It was entitled with but one word, “Wohin?” Where to.

Due to the shape of what remains of the tower, Berliners affectionately call it, “The hollow tooth.”